Combined Arms Assault: A brief debrief by Archduke Piccolo

As promised, Archduke Piccolo has written a very interesting blog entry in which he comments on his recent re-fight of the World War II scenario featured in my book THE PORTABLE WARGAME.

The first part of his debrief explains how he turned my original hexed map ...

... into one that would work on his square gridded tabletop.

Anyone who wants to do something similar in the future will find this an extremely useful example to follow.

The second part of the debrief the examines the effect of using the system of each side's total SP being gradually eroded by combat as opposed to the 'Sudden Death' option, and looks at the way several of the rules can be interpreted and/or used. He also raises the very valid point that there are no specific restrictions on how far an Artillery unit can 'see' (and therefore fire) on the battlefield if there are no obstacles between it and a target, and the fact that there are no reconnaissance rules.

In my reply to these last points I commented that:

'I did include recce and spotting rules in early drafts of the rules, but they fell foul of my play-testing. They didn't seem to add anything to the game (i.e. I usually forgot to use them!), and it was just as easy to account for indirect artillery fire by only allowing artillery that could fire indirectly to do so, and to penalise them when they did. (They don't get a +2 on their firing dice throws.)'

Having followed Archduke Piccolo's blog for some time, and knowing that he is a very good wargame designer, I suspect that he will come up with some suitable rules that answer the points that he has raised ... and that I will want to use myself!

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At the end of his blog entry Archduke Piccolo has included several photographs of his proposed Not Quite Mechanised Soviet Mechanised Brigade. This comprises:

• HQ: commander and flag, with command vehicle;
• Logistics, 1 Zis Truck;
• 3 Rifle Battalions comprising:
• 3 'fighting' stands (Rifles with an Light Machine Gun on one of them) and
• 3 support stands (1 Medium Machine Gun, 1 PTRD or PTRS Anti-tank Rifle, 1 Light or Medium Mortar or and Infantry Gun);
• 1 Tank Regiment with 2 Medium Tanks;
• 1 Recon unit with Armoured Car and Jeep;
• 1 Anti-tank Gun unit with 1 x 45mm or 57mm Anti-tank Gun;
• 1 Field Artillery unit with 1 x 76mm Gun;
• 1 Anti-aircraft unit (absent from the photograph;)
• 1 'Motorcycle' Company.

In an operational-level wargame this could easily pass muster as a Soviet Mechanised Corps as well as being an ideal basis on which to build a Soviet force for use in a PORTABLE WARGAME battle.